Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Here's the artcle in the Oak Ridge School newspaper that caused the confiscation. I'm going to make sure my sons read it.

By the way...It seems about as fair and balanced as an article can get, makes no moral judgements, and does not advocate anything other than providing information. Sure it's a bit delicate, but I'll bet nearly every kid in the school needs to know the info, and I'll also bet that danged few parents haved told their own children this stuff.

Just so you'll know: I've covered most of it with my two boys. I must admit that I learned a thing or two, though, about just how lucky I was when I was their age.

Ah, Roane County, Tennessee. Balmy weather this morning and the creek is running high enough to talk to me when I go out on the deck.

"Go kayaking..." the creek says.

I think about making a few calls and canceling appointments, but I shouldn't. Life intrudes on my fun.I have obligations that can't be put off until tomorrow, so I'll just take a quick hike and morn the loss of a play day.

Later, I promise myself.

Roane is a good place with just a little more than its fair share of shallow thinkers. Lots of those seem to wind up in our political offices. If a thoughtful person does have a stupid moment, run for office and get elected, by some weird coalescence of cosmic forces, it is difficult for them to change the direction the county is headed. If one of the city or county officials actually has an idea, which is not quite rare enough to be odd... but almost, the other officials will pounce on him like chickens on a dropped egg.

"Ideas are supposed to come from consulting firms," the other officials will say. "They have things to sell our county and our fair cities. Therefore, it is the consulting firms that know best what is good for us..." Then they will vote to reduce spending in the offending official's district, especially if the idea was a particularly good one.

Now, Roane County has a jail. Not a fine Taj Majal Jail, just a plain old jail. It is a bit too small for the number of guests inside. It sits about 150 feet away from the famous Roane County Courthouse, where girlfriends of inmates come to shoot their boyfriends out of prison.

You may have seen us on TV. A prisoner from the next county was visiting us and his girlfriend decided it was time for her fifteen minutes of fame and tragedy ensued. An officer was killed...He was a good man, by all accounts. Shot dead in the parking lot during the transport of a prisoner to and from a jail many miles away. This apparently gave our officials an idea..."Hey!" they said. "Let's build a new jail for ourselves and we can put it many miles away, too. This way, Roane County can be on National TV over and over again, when girlfriends of prison guests come to shoot up the place." Since this was a perfectly bad idea any way you looked at it, all the County officials nodded their heads. Nobody's district was going to lose money over this turkey.

It was a jewel of a bad idea.

The new jail is proposed to cost $18 million. That is the proposed figure and you can imagine what the actual cost will be. A phrase you will never ever hear in regard to a County project is, "On time and under budget." The average number of guests in our prison is 120. I know you guys have started scratching on your napkins so I'll do the math for you. 18,000,000 divided by 120 is 150,000. You can think about it sort of like our county fathers are proposing that we build a hundred and twenty houses for our prison guests that might cost as little as (but probably more than) $150,000.00 each. Nice!

There's more.

Right now, as I said, the current jail is 150 feet from the Courthouse. It is also next to the Sheriff's office, two blocks away from the police station, firehouse, etc. etc. etc. And smack dab in the center of a business district. In the world of County officials, this is a bad place for the jail and where they propose to build the new jail is adjacent to Roane County Community College and adjacent to a residential neighborhood. Sounds like the perfect place for society's worst, don't you think? Property values should skyrocket, eh? The Community College Administrators, having several campuses to put their efforts into in the future, will certainly want to build up the campus located next to the jail, right?

There's more.

Roane county has another crowding problem that involves society's best as opposed to its worst. We have two elementary schools that have almost twice as many students as they should. We need two new schools right now and at least two more in the near future. Let's see, now...Where should the County put its money? Into the criminals, or into the children?

In a room in the Roane County Courthouse, the Roane County Commissioners sat in a sort of semi circle , facing each other as they search for leadership. (Why do Committees look at the inside of their tiny little circles when they search for ideas? Shouldn't they look the other way? At the rest of the world?)

"Let's spend our tax money on the Criminals!" they all agreed. "We'll get to raise property taxes by ten percent,... Even better...We get to screw the kids, and the consulting firms get a bunch of money. It's Perfect!" they said.

Monday, November 28, 2005

The Principal at Oak Ridge High School searched teacher's desks after hours and confiscated copies of the high school newspaper from kids that had gotten one already. Then the kide were ordered to bring them back from home and turn them in as if these pieces of paper were contraband.

Illegal!

Is this what information has become? When did the Taliban take over?

The offending articles involved tattoos and birth control information. Here's what the Director of schools said about the tattoo(from the Oak Ridger newspaper):

"Bailey said the feature about tattoos and body piercing featured a photo of an unnamed student baring a tattoo that her parents didn't know about, and that was the only concern.

"I have a problem with the idea of putting something in the paper that makes us a part of hiding something from the parents,'' he said. "

I simply must point out the stupidity of that statement...mainly because it indicates to me that Director Bailey might have been sleeping through the class on Critical Thinking. If you put it in the paper...it is no longer being hidden, I would think. Let me make this easy:

Tattoo...Photograph...Newspaper...DUH!!!...Bull Poopie, Mr. Bailey.

Now the real reason...An article in the student paper had information that was definitely useful to nearly all students...It concerned birth control:

"The article says many Oak Ridge High students may be having sex. It lists success rates of different birth control methods and reports that contraceptives are available from doctors and the local health department. "

And in the American spirit of freedom of information...

..."Administrators late Tuesday searched through teachers' rooms and desks and seized copies, they said. "

Score another one for the forces of ignorance. I mean everybody knows that if you don't tell kids about birth control they won't have sex, right? And schools aren't supposed to give you the knowlege you need for life itself, right? And students don't have first amendment rights anyway, right?

Oak Ridge High School is in Anderson County in Tennessee. It is a good school in most respects. The teen pregnancy rate for Anderson county is about average in the state of Tennessee, and that is not good.If you were to walk into a freshman English class and look around at the girls, you would see about 14 of them. Odds are, one of them will get pregnant before she graduates.

(I checked and that's correct. Do the math. Each year in your county, out of each one hundred teenaged girls, 3.24 of them get pregnant. In the four years of high school that works out to 13 out of a hundred)

Principal Erwin, whatever you are doing now...It's not working. ...Here is some information you should know:

* Three in 10 (27 percent) 13- to 16-year-olds are sexually active.

* 33 percent of teen pregnancies end in abortion

* Three out of four teen births are out of wedlock

* 65 million people in the U.S. have an incurable STD like HPV, HIV and herpes

* 80 percent of mothers who are under 18 years old will raise their children in poverty and will receive $39 billion in government support.

Ignorance doen't seem to be working for us, Principal Erwin. AS an educator, why don't we try a little knowlege? Everyone knows information is the answer. Everyone except for the ignorants among us. And as I am fond of saying,

..."Ignorance is curable...Not so, Stupidity!"

Courage, Pricipal Erwin. The good news is that you are now in the running for the "Barefoot and Pregnant" award.

Steve

Here are links to the info...Other Tennessee counties are included. There's tons of info and it aint exactly flattering:

Outside early today...got friends coming over and a turkey to smoke. This is the time of year I can't sit still. Just like the rest of the times of year, but late November gets me supercharged. I think it's because of some deep racial memory that knows the dark gray Ides of December are crawling up from hades. Persephone and Zeus are back at it and the rest of us are going to have to deal with it.

Something in me just has to cut firewood. At this point it will be next year's wood because the rick is overflowing. Unless it's colder longer than it has been for the last twenty years, I'll have plenty for a while yet. Still, I take the old truck up on the hillside and shorten some logs. Cut and load, cut and load, that's the cycle... rest breaks are built in. During one of the breaks, when all around me was the sound of the forest, there was a croak from on high that got my attention. I didn't recognize it at first and it seemed to be coming from the ridge top, several hundred feet in elevation above me. Then it was nearly above me in the low clouds and I knew what it would be. Out of a cloud flew thirty or so Sand Hill cranes on their way to the Hiwassee refuge, only thirty miles left in a thousand mile flight. I took the binoculars and watched them fly, like pogo sticks with wings. Cranes are easily identified by the long legs extended out the back, never tucked under. Their large body bobs up and down in counterpoint to the methodical wing flap, each one taking turns singing the not quite hoink, not quite croak that carries them along. With the binoculars I could see their heads turn, showing the long feathers on their heads. It is cold if you aren't moving so I set the glasses down and went bask to loading firewood.

But I was accompanied by Crane-song now. Aldo Leopold wrote of "goose music" and the possible tragedy that could befall the world if no goose music were left for future generations. They hunt Sand Hill Cranes now, in Wisconsin. The cranes are now a commodity and someone will pay to keep them around. I am saddened that commerce is our one true religion in this world, for now, but so it is and we must deal with it.

For now, I can be happy watching the young button bucks play fighting on the driveway and wonder what it was that the hawk just screamed across the gorge to kill under the canopy of brown hickory leaves.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

I met Robert Kennedy Jr. a few years back in Utah. When he started speaking, I wondered why everybody had made such a big deal of the so called "Kennedy Mistique." By the time he was through talking, I was ready to run outside and scream in some polluter's face. I just read a speech of his that's I'll tell you about in a minute.

In contrast to Bobby Kennedy Jr., Yesterday I had lunch with a U. S. Congressman from Tennessee and heard him say several things that point out exactly why we have such a mess on our hands. He said "Developers have their hands tied because of the environmental regulations" and he said that he can't back Nano technology too hard because of the moral issues involved. Why do we have so many of this guy and so few Robert Kennedy's?

It's not stupidity...It is ignorance.

Did you know that some religious nuts, of which we in Tennessee have way too many of, believe that Nanotechnology is too close to becoming the Intelligent Designer? Huh? Talk about an uninformed group!

And frankly folks any developer, and I am one, who had his hands tied because of environmental regulations under George Bush...ought to! We're down to only a few forms of wanton destruction actually being illegal.

Why are we so ignorant? What is this disease that we as a society have contracted?

It all boils down to the same few diseases that are causing all of our symptoms.

First of all is the infamous "K" Street. This is the lobbyists row in Washington, D.C. where all the money is handed out to the politicians who sit up, beg, and do tricks for billions of dollares in corporate donations. Tom Delay has been the faucet keeper for this money, which is his source of power. Tom is a crooked a guy with little moral restraint and no vision of the America he is helping to create. I suspect his days of power are over but someone else will fill the vacuum unless the power to bribe our lawmakers is handed back to the people.

Secondly is the combination of removing the "Fairness Doctrine" and allowing the ownership of our information providers in America to be consolidated into the hands of so few corporations. I didn't say "So few people" you should note...I said "Corporations."

Except for the one percent or so of all people who are sociopaths, most people have a conscience of sort. There is some guilt felt in doing wrong. For corporations there is only celebration in profit...monitary profit. There is no corporate joy at eradicating a terrible disease for instance. Unless there is money made in the process.

"Hey Boss, We can eliminate half of all asthma cases by reducing our profits a over the next few years."

Can you imagine a CEO thinking this is a good idea? Neither can TVA!

The antidote to corporate greed is an informed electorate. For instance, George W. Bush's approval rating is about 34% in the general population. Among the group of people who can name President Bush's first business partner it is nearly ZERO! This would be an informed group. (George's first business was Arbusto Oil and his backer was Salem Bin Laden, Osama's big brother...but you knew that, right?)

Or are you ignorant. too?

This is curable.

Peace,

Steve

Here is an excerpt from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s speech:

This all started in 1988 when Ronald Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine said that the airwaves belong to the public. They were public-trust assets, just like our air and water, and broadcasters could be licensed to use them but only with the proviso that they use them to promote the public interest and to advance American democracy. They had to inform the public of issues of public import. They had to have the news hours. (None of those networks wanted to show the news, because it's expensive, and they lose money on it.) They had to avoid corporate consolidation. They had to have local control and diversity of control. That had been the requirement of the law since 1928.

Today, as a result of the abolishment of that doctrine, six giant multinational corporations now control all 14,000 radio stations in our country, almost all 6,000 TV stations, 80 percent of our newspapers, all of our billboards, and now most of the Internet information services. So you have six guys who dictate what Americans have as information and what we see as news. The news departments have become corporate profit centers. They no longer have any obligation to benefit the public interest; their only obligation is to their shareholders, and they fulfill that obligation by increasing viewership.

How do you do that? Not by reporting the news that we need to hear to make rational decisions in our democracy but, rather, by entertaining us, by appealing to the prurient interests that all of us have in the reptilian core of our brain for sex and celebrity gossip. [applause] So they give us Laci Peterson and Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant, and today we're the best-entertained and the least-informed people on the face of the earth. This is a real threat to American democracy.

I do 40 speeches a year in red states, and there is no difference between how Republican audiences and Democratic audiences react when they hear what this White House and this Congress are doing. There is no difference except that the Republicans come up afterward and say, "Why haven't we ever heard of this before?" I say to them, "It's because you're watching Fox News and listening to Rush." Eighty percent of Republicans are just Democrats who don't know what's going on. [applause]

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

It's cool and brisk this morning. Sitting with me at the breakfast table, my youngest son caught sight of an eagle trying to fly around the back side of the house without us seeing him. Headed back up the gorge this early probably means that the eating is good out on the lake right now. Nothing like a washed up two day old dead carp to fill up a hungry symbol of this proud nation on a cold Fall morning!

Actually it is the wind that determines where the big birds fly. On calm mornigs they travel against the cliffs that the sun hits first, riding what there is of the lifting currnts generated off the rocks as the sun warms them up. Even slight temperature changes work for them. On breezy days like this one, the wind rips down the creek and they have to travel against the near cliffs using the eddies to boost their efforts. This is another way of saying they are lazy.

I identify with the eagles in this respect.

I'm going for a hike.

Peace,

Steve

*****

OK, I admit that I like Hugo Chavez, the Democratically elected President of Venezuela. I've even taken to buying gas at Citgo when I can. He's thumbing his nose at Bush/Cheney and their big oil machine. Cheney, of course, hates Chavez. That's enough for me to be on Chavez' side right there, but actually I like Chavez public commitment to his people. Unbridled capitalism has failed them and he proposes to change his country. Most movements of this type start out altruistically but often end up in some form of totalitarianistic governance. Our own is dangerously close to falling over that drastic edge, as so many have pointed out. We'll see how it goes with Chavez and Venezuela. I do hope things stabilize enough for me to visit Angel Falls one day without fear of getting caught in somebody's revolution.

Pat Robertson, that jolly old man of god, has called for Hugo's murder. Hugo has offered to do the Christian thing and has offered to help Pat...right after Robertson gets extradicted to Vezuela for making terrorist threats. That's International Law in the treaties the U.S. is still party to. That's how we can bring terrorists to the US for trial. It looks to me like Hugo has a point!

Check this:

Sunday, speaking to foreign delegations attending a meeting of the Organization of American States in Caracas, Chavez said Venezuela will "exercise legal action in the United States" against Robertson.

"Calling for the assassination of a head of state is a terrorist act," said Chavez, an outspoken critic of President Bush who has forged strong relations with communist-led Cuba.

"We could even request his extradition," he added.

..."We could offer him free psychiatric treatment ... but he could be a lost case" Chavez said sarcastically of Robertson and controversial statements the conservative commentator has made in the past.

Vice President Cheney has gone all war and fuzzy on us, too. Especially if your idea of of warm and fuzzy is the Republican one...you know...Warm and Fuzzy equals "Oozing with sickly green putrid Bile." Yep! That's Dickie, all right.

Charlie Fincher, my favorite "Drawyer", notes a resemblence to another Veep from years past.

I watched Congressman John Murtha talk for a bit last night. He's the person that Congresswoman Mean Jean Schmidt called a coward because he says his vote to go to war in Iraq was wrong. He served 37 years in the Marine Corp, fought in two wars, and was given the Bronze Star for valor. Yep! Sounds like a coward to me.

(Jean Schmidt, meanwhile, served on the agriculture committe for her county and was being investigated for ethics violations)

John Murtha is an imposing man. He stood in front of reporters and talked about visiting wounded American troops in the hospital...about a soldier lying in bed trying to learn to put on three plastic limbs with the one arm he had left. He talked about visiting a soldier who was parylized from the neck down...the boy's family was beside him and they were all crying because of what the future held for them. John Murtha did something Jean Schmidt has not done...He asked the boy's family if there was anything he could do?

"Get him a Purple Heart" the boy's mother said.

"He was wounded by friendly fire...they won't give him a Purple Heart because it was his own people that did this to him."

Murtha went to the Commandant and told him, "Can't you get that soldier his Purple Heart? If you don't do it, I'll give him one of mine!"

In addition to his Bronze Star for valor, John Murtha was awarded two Purple Hearts for being wounded in action. He is a very brave man...And, he was standing up proudly in front of those reporters doing a very brave thing...Admitting he was wrong about voting for the Iraq war. He went through a list of mistakes and documented incompetencies by the Bush administration in the conduct of the war and gave a reasonable plan for getting us out over a period of six months.

"Our presence in Iraq is the cause for the terrorism" he said. Virtually every other analyst has said the same thing. "We have to leave" he said. "We have no clear mission."

Murtha said that with a straight face. When he was talking about his visit with the wounded soldiers, he was sniffing back tears.

With his vote, Murtha knows that he helped send those soldiers to Iraq, some to die, some to return in pieces. Rather than hide behind pomposity and refusal, he stood up in front of reporters and said he was wrong and that it is time to rectify that mistake.

For me personally, here is the bottom line: "We have no clear mission."

Every minute we remain in Iraq, we are asking American troops to face being wounded or being killed. Ask yourself this question:

Sunday, November 20, 2005

I tend to view the supernatural with serious skepticism,marveling that humans would rather believe the unlikely than accept the obvious. It is like the old movie cliche of the white explorer flicking his lighter and having the savages ascribe the flame to "Magic" as opposed to a simple chemical reaction of fuel, oxygen, and spark.

If religion were truly a matter for all eternity, I would prefer to think for myself rather than sitting quietly in the pew and aquiescing to someone else's predigested message. Give me the information and I'll draw my own conclusions, thankyou. Every sermon, however, is edited for the purposes of making us accept a certain viewpoint.

Ok, fine...it's everyone's choice as to which pew they sit in. You want to believe someone is (a) smarter than you and (b) is truthful, and (c) has your best interests at heart...well go ahead. Except for one little thing...You maybe ought to make sure about a, b, and c before you sit there quietly and soak up what is to become your own viewpoint.

Why we tend to follow other's viewpoints instead of always developingour own has a basis in human phisiology. There is a group of cells in the hippocampus area of the human brain that allows us to conceive of large social groups and interactions. This part of the brain facilitates human functioning in groups greater than eight individuals. Without it we can't conceive of things like extended families, trade unions, religious groups, or political parties. Humans divide the world into essentialy two groups, "US" and "Them." This group of cells in the human brain alow us to make the "Us" part of the world much much larger than it could be otherwise. Communities, States, and Nations, could not exist without it. An interesting observation by neuroscientists is that a human's religion can be sugically removed...So can politics.

I think that we could categorize people's political philosophies based on how they establish their Us's and Them's.

What are our criteria for placing people in one of these groups? And...Are you sure this is based on the truth? Those seem like questions we should ask ourselves, early and often.

In today's world, the majority of the information we are fed seems to be personal attacks as opposed to facts of any sort. The Us-Them nature of our current society seems to have rendered the American electorate incapable of penetrating the political mud and making an informed decision. The evil of politics is hellbent on building the numbers of "Us" at any expense...the truth and the future be damned. Want to build a church really fast? Claim righteousness for "Us" and bombasticly ascibe all sorts of evil to "Them".

This tactic tends to work for a short while no matter what. If you can prevent any contradictory information from reaching your "Us" group, you can keep it going for quite a bit longer.

For example, if you tell children that evolution is godless, and that god wants you to accept creationism, you can get away with this as long as you can keep the overwhelming mountain of evidence supporting Darwinian theory from reaching them. And if you can bombard them with nonsense long enough, they will lose the ability to think for themselves and maybe they will never have that "Aha!" moment, such as the one they should be having right now, as the world trembles in fear while waiting for that moment in human history when the virus that causes avian flu evolves the ability to transmit itself from human to human. As of now, it can't. It must evolve...But there's worse, according to the intelligent designers. The intelligent designer may well choose to redesign the bird virus to transmit from human to human, himself, in his own loving way...thereby killing millions upon millions of humans on a whim.

But that's off topic for this sermon...ahem...

Back to determining Us and Them.

I think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I ain't no FundXtian Death cult Armageddonist. But I'm am an optimist and I think we can save it. All we have to do is get enough Us's together, sort out the facts, and act collectively in our best interests. (that would be HUMAN best interest, not that of corporations. If Satan walks the earth, he is in corporate form! )

The facts are essential to this process as is critcal thinking. If Fox News won't give them to us, we will dig them out ourselves, but we must be receptive of the facts and not give in to our tendencies to believe in what is nothing more than gossip. We can't let our judgement be swayed by name calling, and more than that, if some tries to use name calling as a tactic to cloud our judgement, they must be condemned! We must condemn people like Representative Jean Schmidt for standing on the floor of Congress and calling Representative John Murtha a coward for presenting an idea. We can not fear ideas. If we are to be saved, it is ideas and knowlege that will be our weapons. We can not wish for salvation... We must create it. Our judgement must be accurate and those who would try to hide the truth from us must be pushed aside.

With that, I leave you with a quote from the King James version of the Judeo Christian bible. I started this piece with how little people know about their own religion and this sums it up. I looked at several versions and translations and they are all virtually identical. from Psalms 82:

"How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked? "

Courage,

Steve

*****

"President Bush is on an 8-day tour of Asia. He's visiting American jobs. He's spending 8 days in the Orient, and as we all know, he's spent the last four years in disorient." --David Letterman

"Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says he wants to be president. Well that's good, somebody will have to pardon his brother." --David Letterman

Here's a site I'm checking on regularly. You can tell a good site by the intelligence of the comments, usually. I love the comment from Julie about bumperstickers...Julie made her own that says,

To right-minded Americans, the idea that Administration officials have betrayed their national security obligations, yet remain in their jobs, is nothing short of appalling. Beyond politics is patriotism: Patriotic Americans want to see you not only prosecute those who compromised and endangered Valerie Plame Wilson, but also force the Administration to clean house with respect to those who did this, which you can accomplish through appropriate civil action.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Frankly folks, I've seen backstabbing cheerleader moms at a small town redneck highschool behave less childish and catty than the Republicans in the US Congress did last week.

What do you think happens after a Congressman with 37 highly decorated years in the marine Corps come to grips with his conscience and calls for a careful pullout from Iraq? Do the Republican Congressmen act like mature thinking adults or childish corporate prostitutes?

Interestingly, not one single Republican Congressman that called John Murtha a coward has ever served one day in the armed forces of America.

From our "Republicans are Idiots" Department, here's a fair account of the stupidity in the House of Representatives after Congressman John Murtha introduced his resolution. Of course it comes from the British Press and not the American media!

OK, So...This blog is often about my view of the natural world so I guess I need to put something in here that's natural...Problem is, there's not much left that is natural. Humans dominate the forces at work on planet Earth. Another way to look at it if the very selfish and self destructive, "It's All about Us, Now!"

That was the subtitle of a book called "The end of Nature" a few years back. I wish that it weren't so damned accurate. The only thing surprising to me is the source of the word...A Scientist from Alabama!

I thought science was illegal in Alabama...

"Thugocracies and other non-democratically accountable governments . . . have no real incentive to create a healthy populace with free markets and therefore free people."

.... John R. Christy, a climatologist who directs the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Global warming is killing hundreds of thousands of people a year..right Now! But it's OK...Most of them are poor. read on:

I love these mornings we're having... Good freezing temperatures in the 20's (Below Zero if you are a Celsius keeper like me). I've taken the time to watch the dawn come by most mornings this week and I've watched from several different locations. Wednesday morning, driving up Highway 27, was the best so far. The first red light was hitting Walden Ridge at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, turning the last hanging oak leaves back to glowing red under the sun rise as the full moon set overhead.

I had an appointment to keep two states away. I didn't stop and take the picture. My bad! I keep telling myself,

Friday, November 18, 2005

I'm posting these from my steam powered dial up in the woods of South Carolina. I'll fix them later. I took them Wednesday at sunset in Roane County Tn. The moral of the story is that I need to keep a tripod taped to my camera bag. I'm too shaky, in my old age, to shoot hand held.

I have limited contact with the outside world here, but too much gets through for me to remain ignorant.

I had a friend cut off our discussion with the comment, "You don't understand! You need to listen to Rush Limbaugh more and you'd understand!"

Why don't you google "Rush Lie" if you have a few days to waste. Then you'll understand why I cracked up laughing.

There's no help for the helpless.

*****

Vice President Richard B. Cheney amazes me. he just effectively called the majority of Americans, "Traitors."

You disagree with him? You're a traitor.

81% of all Americans do!

With that said, let me remind you folks of the obvious. All of the indictments in the Traitor gate scandal, the outing of a covert CIA perative Valerie Plame, have so far been inside Dick Cheney's staff. Dick Cheney is often mentioned as a possible indictee. Cheney was the main person pushing for the CIA intelligence report to leave out all evidence contradicting his rationalle for the Iraq war. No caveats, nothing, made the report. There were plenty!...Including the fact that the one person, who claimed Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program, made that claim while being tortured.

Got that? Cheney is the main advocate for torture. He had a guy tortured to give the evidence he wanted. It wasn't true!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

There is a movie out telling everyone what a great and courageous man Edward R. Murrow was. He was the TV newsman who called a U.S. Senator a liar on live television. I remember Edward R. Murrow on television in the fifties. It's not that I would have chosen him to watch so much as there was only one tv channel in Winston Salem. there were soap operas until five oclock, a half hour of Mickey Mouse Club and cartoons and then the news. My kids don't understand the time before satelites and 150 channel mind numbing noise from talking heads with perfect hair and teeth who graduated from canned "journalism" schools as opposed to the school of World War II.

My mom and dad sat in the TV room after supper and watched Senator Joe McCarthy be dismantled by a man who felt he carried the burden of telling America the truth on his shoulders. The adolescent I was then didn't understand what was going on but I could tell which man was lying. His career was essentially over after that night because American news people stopped reporting what he said. He was a Liar, after all!

We seem to have lost the ability to be outraged at liars along about the same time as the news people lost their honor and courage.

*****

Yesterday's News.

Dick Cheney was in Knoxville yesterday and the TV said he was heckled. He was here to speak nice things about former Senator Howard Baker who was having a University School named in his honor. Here is what the U T web site says about it:

In early 2003 the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy began operations at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The mission of the Baker Center is to develop programs and promote research to further the public's knowledge of our system of governance, and also to highlight the critical importance of public service. The Baker Center will also place a special emphasis on examining the role of the media in society.

Senator Howard Baker rose time and time again above party or ideological lines to craft workable solutions to critical problems facing our country. With this center, we will strive to honor him and to carry on his service to the people of Tennessee and America.

In a speech to 400 people gathered in a public building that holds 25,000, Dick Cheney said things like this:

"Howard did as he has always done: he put the country's interest above all else," Cheney said.

There were only 400 people in the building. They were rewarded with the spectacle of seeing the grand hypocrisy of the most self serving vice president in American history praising the selfless public service of the good man, Howard Baker.

There were only 400 people there but several of them shouted at the Vice President, who, as it has become known, is most responsible for starting the Iraq war. They were taken outside by the security people. Who were they and how did they get in there?

"War! What is it good for?" they said. Security took them away.

"Peace Now!" they said. Security took them away.

"Stop the war!" they said. Security took them away.

In contrast to Howard Baker, today's Republicans do not tolerate the opinions of those who oppose them. Their events are well screened for protestors and only loyal Republicans are allowed inside. This is so that George W. Bush and dick cheney can bask in the love of their sycophants. If the arena in ahich Dick Cheney spoke had been opened to anyone who wanted to see him, I believe there would have been 24,600 more people in there and nearly every one of them would have been shouting at him.

Now here's my observation. They didn't let everyone inside...they never ever do. The people that screamed at Dick cheney must have been...

Republicans!

... at least until recently.

Dick Cheney was attacked by his own kind!

Long ago, we spoke to them but they would not listen. Perhaps they'll listen now.

It is our only hope...and theirs, too!

Peace,

Steve

*****

the evening News showed Bush saying this:

"Let me give you some quotes from (a)... Democrat leader...: First, and I quote, 'There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons.'

But they Dear President left out a few words that were also contained in that statement! Jay Rockefeller also said in that same speech:

"Preventing a war with Saddam Hussein -- whether now or later -- must be our top priority, and I believe this resolution will strengthen the president’s hand to resolve this crisis peacefully."

Sort of had a different gist compared to what the President would have you believe, doesn't it? his Rudeness does it better than I:

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Washington Times is essentially a Republican newspaper. How are we supposed to read this?:

Other stuff from Americablog:

"President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration sources say. The president's reclusiveness in the face of relentless public scrutiny of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and White House leaks regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame has become so extreme that Mr. Bush has also reduced contact with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, administration sources said on the condition of anonymity."

The Druge Report, not noted for honesty but Wingnut loyal nonetheless, has this to add:

"The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions."

So...George Bush is only speaking with women? How weird is that?

At fafblog...this amazing piece. Why dispense with the Bill of rights for mere Terrorists?...:

"...But why stop with terror when the same tactics could aid America so much more in its war on crime? A lean, streamlined criminal justice system could skip straight from arrest to imprisonment without the lengthy hassle of a criminal trial, while simultaneously eliminating the dangeous possibility that any guilty suspect could evade justice through the loophole of being innocent. Mr. Graham would protest that at Guantanamo "we are dealing with enemy combatants, not common criminals," but the fact of the matter is that common criminals are far more dangerous. In 2003 alone, over seventeen thousand deaths were the result of homicide in the United States - nearly six times the total domestic body count of terror so far. If we insist on denying the most basic rights of an old man randomly pulled out of an Afghan village, can we ask any less of the two hundred million potential criminals roving America's streets?"

"No one had ever seen a smoky madtom - scientific name Noturus baileyi - until 1957, when biologists treated Abrams Creek in the Smokies with a commonly used poison called rotenone to reduce the rough fish population and improve trout fishing.

Among the scores of fish killed was a miniature catfish, complete with tiny whiskers. The scenario was classic good news-bad news: the good news being the discovery of a new species, the bad news being that it was already dead."

Monday, November 14, 2005

Back home from D.C. after a cantankerous and self destructive meeting of the typical nonprofit do-gooder organization, where many awards and plaques were ceremoniously presented by and to a bunch of folks who spend the rest of their volunteer time in schemes worthy of a King Henry court in the darkest of ages.

My wife looked at the mug I had been given at the banquet which read, "Paddlesports Legend". "What does that mean?" she said. "Legend is sort of like a myth" says I. "Yeah" says she.

This morning, it's drizzly, coolish, dark, brown, foggy, and the forest is in its final throes of Fall, leaving the last appearance of life to the heavily outnumbered evergreens. It is the season of the witch

...Oh Yeah!

After the last color gives up and drops to the ground, the forest opens up and sunlight finally reaches the christmas ferns and pipsissiwa crawling around in the leaf litter. In the secondary canopy where dogwoods live, there is another small tree that makes good use of this time of year, as Persephone descends to the underworld for her annual Zeusian conjugal visit.

It's all about competition... For food, water, sun, and sex. Plants have it, too, you know. And they've got it a little tougher than manimals, what with not being to move around very easily. Plants are heavy into bestiality. In the spring there are tons of partners in nature's single's bar. for plants, we usually call them pollinators, and the majority of them are insects, though birds, small mammals, and the wind itself, lend a hand as circumstances permit. the problem with spring time is that while there are tons of opportunities, there's a lot of competition, too. that's why there's nearly always some flower blooming at other seemingly odd times, flirting with danger and unsafe frivolity with the few pollinators that can still do what has to be done on the very edge of the last precipice before the dark of winter.

Now come the Gentian and the Witch. The lowly gentian lives in moist areas and is barely strong enough to poke through the leaves and show the pale blue or white flowers that don't seem to open. The Witch is Witch Hazel...my favorite tree. Small and strong and also living in moist areas. One that I visited most often, lived at the end of the road leading to Whites Creek, next to the water. On my fall hikes I liked to orbit by this tree looking to see if the unusual blossom spires had sprung from the limbs, twisted, white and small...the last bloom of the year. A Thanksgiving decoration, if you will.

Here is a picture of my Witch hazel tree.

If I ever find out who the fisherman was, I plan to vent my anger in expressive exhuberance.

Peace,

Steve

This is a shot of the water next to the Witch. There really is water in the picture..honest, though you may have to click on the image and check the larger version.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

(Dem)St. Paul mayor who supported Bush in 2004 was crushed (by another Dem)

The Dem's really had a big day yesterday with convincing governor victories in Virginia, New Jersey and Arnold was handed a serious slap as well in California, with all three of his ballot initiatives losing. Yesterday was a nice start and sets an excellent tone for 2006.

CHETA? You gotta be kidding? From the Blogger formerly known as Bubba:

"Cockfighters also established a political action committee, Citizens for the Humane and Ethical Treatment of Animals, or CHETA, which gave $1,000 each to then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas."

As we learn more aboutthe Ohio election, we can see that this is the plain truth.

When a recount of ALL the votes cast in Florida in 2000 was completed, Al Gore had won. This does not take into account the obvious manipulations of voter eligibility roles that prevented tens of thousands of rightfully eligible black voters from being allowed, the famous butterfly ballot that took 3000 votes away from Gore, or several other suspicious incidents, all of which manipulated the vote talley in one direction only...For George W. Bush.

As a result of an incorrect talley in Florida, Bush won the election. the most outrageous occurrence of all was the Supreme Court decision by 5-4 vote that said, in essence, that it would be unfair to actually recount the Florida votes.

The Supreme Court stopped us from finding out who Florida voters actually voted for and installed Bush as President.

Now we have the Government Accounting Office report that essentially says the Ohio vote was manipulated in 2004. As a part of the report, there are sworn statements claiming that votes were altered in favor of Bush. There were over 57,000 complaintsof incorrect vote talleys and nearly 100% of those detected went in one direction only...For George Bush!

"...It therefore was no big task for a single programmer to flip vote numbers to give Bush the 118,775 votes."

"These findings are even more damning when we understand the election in Ohio was run by a secretary of state who also was co-chairman of Bush’s Ohio campaign."

With several Ohio elected and appointed officials currently indicted or under investigation, it does appear that a little thing like the Law is not much of a deterrent. Millions of dollars have been stolen and a portion of the stolen money was given to the Bush reelection campaign.

It appears that America had better sense than to elect George bush either time!

Now what?

With last night's results handing Bush and company resounding defeats, in spite of their really nasty campaign tactics and huge amounts of money from corporate donors, it appears that enough people wil step forward and cleanse the Whitehouse and Congress. how much damage will be done in the meantime?

Monday, November 07, 2005

"For the record: Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the A.C.L.U. But the more important question is why aren't you, sir?

This is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question.

Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for president, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, then, folks, you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a couple of minutes ago. Everybody knows American isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship.

You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free. I've known my opponent for years. I've been operating under the assumption that the reason he devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong.

My opponent's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. His problem is that he can't sell it. Nobody has ever won an election by talking about what I was just talking about.

This is a country made up of people with hard jobs that they're terrified of losing. The roots of freedom are of little or no interest to them at the moment.

We are a nation afraid to go out at night.

We're a society that has assigned low priority to education and has looked the other way while our public schools have been decimated. We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious men to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, friend, I promise you, My opponent is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid... and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections."

Now that took courage! Don't you agree? There is only one problem...That speech is from a movie...It never happened...And that is what is wrong with America.

Oddly, there was a great presidential debate on TV last night on the West Wing. Too bed we never get real candidates like that. Here's the thread that put me on to the speech above.

The science is extremely clear: Global warming may not affect the frequency of hurricanes, but it makes the average hurricane stronger, magnifying its destructive power. In the years ahead, there will be more storms like Katrina, unless we change course. Indeed, we have had two more Category 5 storms since Katrina -- including Wilma, which before landfall was the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic.

We know that hurricanes are heat engines that thrive on warm water. We know that heat-trapping gases from our industrial society are warming the oceans. We know that, in the past 30 years, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes globally has almost doubled. It's time to connect the dots:

Last year, the science textbooks had to be rewritten. They used to say, "It's impossible to have a hurricane in the South Atlantic." We had the first one last year, in Brazil. Japan also set an all-time record for typhoons last year: 10. The previous record was seven. This summer, more than 200 cities in the United States broke all-time heat records. Reno, Nev., set a new record with 10 consecutive days above 100 degrees. Tucson, Ariz., tied its all-time record of 39 consecutive days above 100 degrees. New Orleans -- and the surrounding waters of the Gulf -- also hit an all-time high.

This summer, parts of India received record rainfall -- 37 inches fell in Mumbai in 24 hours, killing more than 1,000 people.

The new extremes of wind and rain are part of a larger pattern that also includes rapidly melting glaciers worldwide, increasing desertification, a global extinction crisis, the ravaging of ocean fisheries, and a growing range for disease "vectors" like mosquitoes, ticks and many other carriers of viruses and bacteria harmful to people.

All of these are symptoms of a deeper crisis: the "Category 5" collision between our civilization -- as we currently pursue it -- and the Earth's environment.

...I have a happy little spider living in my bathroom underneath the sink. She’s been there for awhile now and shows no signs of leaving. What is the life expectancy of a spider anyhow?

I have always assumed a spider lives about one year, but now that I think about it...I don't know. Anybody out there in the Blogosphere got the 411?

I figure it's all about timing. When will the babies best be able to survive and find food in the Darwinian contest? I've seen spider hatchlings in the Fall and Spring, each having its advantages, alternating between dispersal and ready access to prey.

There is one other amazing sight on Fall afternoons in the gorge...Flying spiders!

As the late afternoon light momentarily cracks the shadow within the gorge, spiders fly. They climb to an appropriate launch point and release a long strand of silk with which to sail the air currents. it doesn't matter which way the winds go at the time, sometimes upriver, sometimes down. The spider silks glisten in the sun as the arachnid airforce fly where the wind takes them. Thousands of them float by my field of vision from the rock I like to sit upon on such days. It is a common occurance. Nothing rare about it except for someone to appreciate it.

Much wonder to be observed!

KH also said:

Did ya hear Jimmy Carter on NPR this morning? He was very well spoken. I’m not very familiar with him or his presidency, as he was in office when I was born. But I was impressed by what I would consider his ability to ‘quietly persuade’.

Me too!

James Earl is a good and wonderful man. I glanced at his new book in Borders a day or two ago but put it down in favor of "The Onion"...Must have my satire! ...The mind's most nutritious food group.

Anyway, Jimmy Carter is at the top of my list of great people who could have made a difference...but didn't. Ronald Reagan lied his way into the Whitehouse, and Jimmy Carter let him. That was the turning point in world history...America's descent into fascism.

You folks probably know that I am in constant search for the methods of honest persuasion in the never ending battle against Cognitive Dissonance. I believe very few things, though I suspect many. One thing I do believe with all my being, is that we are at war with the forces of evil within all humans. I don't see it in terms of any supernatural mythology, but merely the choice the human race must make in detemining its future, and ultimately whether it will have one.

Jimmy Carter is an honest man, and he proved that the Untied States government cannot function with just one honest man in power. It was him against the world. Even his own political party worked against him (something Howard Dean is facing today.)

What Carter lacked was the warrior nature required to deal with his enemies. He truly loved them in his Christian heart....and he let them survive. This was terribly wrong, as it turns out. The vermin that were not dealt with have now done away with truth in America. Speak the truth and you will be visciously attacked, as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame found out. People who speak the truth must be revered or America is doomed.

Jimmy Carter is one of those....But he won't save our country. There must be more.

Friday, November 04, 2005

She was huge last time I saw her and now she's nice and petite. Bad news is, she'll die soon. I don't know when or how long she's got, but I'll keep watch hoping I can find out.

Ok, she's a spider. Big mamma spider until sometime in the last day or so. She's still hanging upside down in the corner of one of the large windows in the dining room, right next to the silk covered ball of spider eggs. A big Mamma spider lays a lot of eggs. I counted and there's exactly one Brazillian of them.

I'm not much on washing windows, particularly when they sit about twenty feet off the ground, but this is the time of year when I can't stand it any more. The leaves are dropping out of my view of the gorge, hidden for the last six months, and I get to see the cliffs with the freshness caused by absence. Of course they were there all along but I would have had to cut something to see them. Now it's time for Mom Nature to show me her stuff and drop those leaves out of the way. Suddenly, the spots on the glass become significant. That brilliant red soft maple tree on the far side is about the same size as the smudge that lies in direct line of view. Smudge gotta go!

...Time for the window washing contraption I make up out of aluminum poles, a sponge mop, and duct tape. Clean windows are coming...except for one. Folks are generally too polite to ask why we have one dirty window. (Actually, folks who know me marvel that any of them get washed in the first place, let alone all but one.) As it is, I'm not about to abort one Brazillian spider babies. Only about six of them will make it to adulthood anyway.

Fishing in the air can be a tough way to make a living.

And if you're a male spider...Your life ends with being eaten as part of sex. I mean really eaten...

Peace,

Steve

*****

Personally, I get the maddest at people who try to manipulate me with false information. Here is something written by Mike Scanlon, a former aide to Tom Delay, who, like his boss, has now been indicted.

Via Kos:

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Tom Delay didn't do anything illegal...just launder money to subvert Texas State Law. All trumped up charges from a partisan prosecutor and judge. Forget, if you will, that most of the other people who worked for Tom's Pac are under indictment, too.

Senator Frist is being investigated for stock fraud but he grandstands, outraged that Harry Reid wants Frist to move forward with the investigation into who manipulated the CIA intelligence and got us into the Iraq War under false pretenses. "Can't trust Harry! any more" said Frist. Harry wants us to find the truth.

Truth? Truth got no place in the Republican world! This is an outrage! I mean take Sccoter Libby for example.

Scooter, Scooter, Scooter! Tried to punish Joe Wilson for telling the truth. Then Lied to a Federal Grand Jury, plain and simple. But no worries, Nobody knows who he is, anyway...Why he's only the Vice President of the United States' right hand man...No biggie, eh? And who'd he lie to protect, anyway? Hmmm.

..Check these quotes compiled by Tom Tomorrow:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.Dick Cheney, Vice PresidentSpeech to VFW National Convention8/26/2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.George W. Bush, PresidentSpeech to UN General Assembly9/12/2002

Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not haveGeorge W. Bush, PresidentRadio Address10/5/2002

After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.George W. Bush, PresidentCincinnati, Ohio Speech10/7/2002

We’ve also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areasGeorge W. Bush, PresidentCincinnati, Ohio Speech10/7/2002

The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying itAri Fleischer, Press SecretaryResponse to Question From Press12/4/2002

Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it’s time has run out.Bill Frist, Senate Majority LeaderSenate Speech3/7/2003

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

So my much beloved Tennessee Senator, Bill Frist is all upset with Harry Reid for wanting the same classified information that the Republicans have. Frist doesn't like it when people want him to play fair

...Not the Frist family way, you understand

...just vote like we tell you and shut up. Sure, we're destroying the country, but we're getting rich, rich, rich! That makes it ok, right?

Billy is just a little stressed out what with being caught lying, and investigated for stock violations, and his buddies, Tom and Scooter, being indicted, and the Republican party going down in flames, with the Prez hovering at a 40% approval in this reddest of states.

Billy was all upset and claimed he had been slapped in the face, figuratively speaking, just because he was stone walling a little investigation into Whitehouse treason...Not like it's anything serious. Providing false info to Congress is only an impeachable offense. Not anything like having sex.

Don't be fooled by the dark glasses, anyway...he can see right through them into blind trusts and secret financial shenanigans. Cheney has pair, too! I'm sure you noticed that Halliburton stock bopped right on by Cheney's stock option prices, making the toad in the vice presidential office even more millions that he will never live to spend.

Personally, when I find everything to be so incredibly screwed up that I can't make sense of it, I like to read a bible. Try this little test to see how mush you really know...and be sure to check your answers!

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

I mean, isn't it painfully obvious that they've been lied to and manipulated beyond all reason? Can it be that they really all are in an abusive relationship?...And they like it?

Why do Republicans choose ignorance? They do you know! Here, try this little test just to prove it to yourself:

Ask a Republican this question:

"Who was George W. Bush first business partner?"

I will be shocked if any of you receive the correct answer, which is, of course, Salem Bin Laden, Osama's big brother. Let me know what you hear...I'm curious.

And if anyone questions whether Karl Rove is recovering from his near death experience by indictment, The first business day after his cohort in the Whitehouse was charged...Bush announces the appointment of a crazy guy to the Supreme court.

There goes the right to privacy! That's only for big Corporations anyway, Suckers!

Peace,

Steve

Paul Krugman:

"...the long nightmare won't really be over until journalists ask themselves: what did we know, when did we know it, and why didn't we tell the public?"

Where the Rants Are

About Me

I live as deep in the woods as I can, on the banks of White's Creek where it cuts through the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. It's a good spot for someone who loves people but gets enough of them from time to time. My wife and kids put up with my eccentricities well enough and seem to like where we live, even though we have to drive a good bit to live our active lifestyle. It is the one incongruity of my existence. Our house is a passive solar design with an electrically heated hot tub. Contradictions are everywhere, but we do what we can.
We have a resident Eagle population in the gorge that salutes us most mornings with a fly by during coffee. It's a good spot to live.